Gaidin wrote:Were we playing the same game? One of those was spending 80% of the game throwing a wrench in the Big Bad's plan because she could and then she died because she told you to kill her. Well, mostly she told you to break the machine that the Big Bad's plan depended on. Some Damsel in Distress. The second, well, caught with her pants down in the same fight and captured by the Big Bad and didn't know the system. Forget the rest of the story she's involved in. Calling either a Damsel in Distress is a helluva stretch. Are we using the same term for Angel or Lilith or, again, are we playing the same game?

With feminist rhetoric, only surface characteristics matter. It's the same reason they can simultaneously complain about over sexualized characters and slut-shaming. It becomes doubly hilarious in cases like Bayonetta, where the character designer is a woman. Oh wait, internalized misogyny, so the rhetoric can remain unfalsifiable.

It is not about solutions, it is about creating problems to point out and getting paid for it. They've gotten away with it for a long time too, because on the surface it all sounds reasonable and plays to people's innate ideas of right and wrong. The big reason Gamer Gate has been the first major push-back is because they're trying to colonize and demonize an already diverse and widespread segment of the population as simply evil, white men being evil in their evil little boys' club.

This whole thread is pretty fucking disgusting, but it's not worth the time to go back individually. Though I do have to say, Broomstick admitting her fears are irrational and then demanding they be respected as valid was a hoot and a half. This is exactly what I expected when I decided to see what this place had to say on #gamergate. After all, the official definition of misogyny has become "disagreeing with a woman."

Oh, and you should have a pretty good idea of why nothing will ever come of the multitude of "threats" the anti-gamergate side has claimed to be receiving.

Rule one of Existance: Never, under any circumstances, underestimate stupidity. As it will still find ways to surprise you.

Does anyone else find it odd that Andrew can't be bothered to read the thread, but singles out a female poster who made very few contributions for individual criticism?

A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.Leonard Nimoy.

Now I did a job. I got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character so let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job. And then I get paid.- Malcolm Reynolds, Captain of Serenity, which sums up my feelings regarding the lawsuit discussed here.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. - John F. Kennedy

For those of us not familiar with any of the 2 could you elaborate a bit? And by that I do not mean provide Wikipedia links but actually explaining from your perspective why this is so.

It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.

As I said previously in this thread it's not so much about what your actual goals are, but rather it's about what imagine you put out and atm gamergate is putting out an imagine that's not doing them any favors

also what does SJW stand for, I've heard to used a few times but I got no idea what it means.

I may be an idiot, but I'm a tolerated idiot
"I think you completely missed the point of sigs. They're supposed to be completely homegrown in the fertile hydroponics lab of your mind, dried in your closet, rolled, and smoked...
Oh wait, that's marijuana..."Einhander Sn0m4n

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark." - Muhammad Ali

"Dating is not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be a heart-pounding, stomach-wrenching, gut-churning exercise in pitting your fear of rejection and public humiliation against your desire to find a mate. Enjoy." - Darth Wong

Broomstick wrote:Does anyone else find it odd that Andrew can't be bothered to read the thread, but singles out a female poster who made very few contributions for individual criticism?

Hmm, misrepresentation AND hiding behind being female. Congrats, two bad arguments in one go. "Very few" is a laughable statement in it's own right, but go ahead and damsel harder.

I said it wasn't worth it to argue, but fine I'll bite. Even though it's the same as going onto Answers In Genesis and stating that God doesn't exist. While I would trust any of you in your daily jobs or other areas of expertise, when it comes to politics you've latched onto a dogma that makes you feel good about yourself as a person. Thus, anyone who questions the dogma, no matter what their actual stance is, is the enemy.

Yes, Zoe Quinn was the spark that set it all off. It was then fueled by people within the games journalism industry admitting it, and trying to brush it off as no big deal. Further fuel was poured on when they tried to censor the internet. Showing that they had a fair amount of power over, or support from, mods at Reddit and 4chan, as well as a large number of other sites. Another timber was tossed on with the, I believe, 11 articles about how “Gamers are dead” and not a valid audience any more posted in the span of 1 day by the journalists in question.

It then surfaced that Quinn had used her connections to shut down a charity competition designed to get more women designers into the videogame industry. Ostensibly because they had a rule about transpeople, which the charity claims was to keep men from simply claiming to be one for the duration of the contest.

For double irony points, Quinn is on the record that cheating on someone is the same as rape. So by her own philosophy, she raped her boyfriend.

Rereading the thread; Spyder, Flagg, and Terralthra are beneath comment and contempt, nothing new there. Jub puts forth completely reasonable arguments, but they're dismissed because they don't fit the dogma. (Oh, he's not empathetic enough... but you're slowly molding him.) Eleas fails to understand how easy it is to take something out of context. Or even a fully in context of itself:

mean, think about it. If the people are actively supporting launching a harassment campaign against them are ACTIVELY PROTECTING THEM AGAINST HARASSMENT... how would that look? [..] doesn't really matter though. The crazies are not our objective here [;] the objective is to cause infighting and doubt within SJW ranks[.]

Yes, how WOULD is look if the ones you are claiming are harassing you, are in fact rooting out the people who are harassing you? Might make you look crazy. Could be that you are crazy. (Oh wait, gaslighting.)

Eleas continued discussion remains just as dogma based. He links to an actively anti-gamergate writer. (One who recently berated an interviewer for the high crime of giving reasonable voices within #GG a platform, if I'm not mistaken.) Also several other well known SJW activists, and a doxxing of one of which would only serve to facilitate the anti-gg crowds message. Totally not suspicious, that.

Siege's commentary on hashtag slacktivism is quite good.

Siege wrote:That's one of many problems with hashtag activism: any asshole psycho can use the tag and co-opt your message. Holy shit, who ever knew it was a stupid idea to launch an activism campaign on a social media platform infamous for its burner acounts where discussion is limited to 140 characters, right? But I guess that's what happens when large numbers of people stop trusting the media. A plague o' both your houses!

Oh, I skimmed over Metahive linking to Skepchick the first time I read this. You know the woman who started a charity video by making a several minute long joke misusing the term mangina to insult her critics. Also, elevator-gate and the attempt to co-opt the Athiest Movement with feminism via Athiesm+... Linking to her may as well be the left equivalent of linking Fox News.

Dominus Atheos links a story about... how #notyourshield was the brainchild of the #gamergate movement to illustrate that the SJW aren't actually representing the minorities they claim to, and that this somehow illustrates that #gamergate is a false controversy astroturffed by 4chan?

Vendetta links to an article, which shows why Zoe's kinda a nutbar. I will say, that the updates did not cite the dates at which the donations were received, merely that donations had been made in her name. Which doesn't actually prove she made the donations. People donate to charity in other people's names all the time. The lack of a date on which those donations were received makes their existence meaningless.

Of course, no one touched the story I linked about Meg Lanker-Simons, a feminist who was caught false-flagging a rape threat against herself to try and shut down a college's dating site. To do so would be to open up to the possibility that the people promoting the dogma you cherish aren't paragons of virtue or that the problems they proffer aren't actually extant.

Covenant wrote:We have gone from treating the typical Nerd Trifecta of Cartoons, Video Games and Speculative Fiction as the basement-dweller's companion to treating them as mainstream cultural foundations. I realize how infuriating it must be for a serious #GG person to keep distancing themselves from crap like this.

And that's perfectly fine. Aside from the age old complaint that by appealing to a broader demographic, one creates a watered down product that can only ever appeal to the lowest common denominator, if anyone at all. Which is an entirely separate complaint, to which members of this forum have oft put forward "Fatty Nerds" as their only point.

Covenant wrote:Colonizing? It's not a damned continent full of a native population. Demonize? They say there may be some sexist elements in nerd culture and people respond with sexist attacks, hate, and smear campaigns. Even before anyone had heard of Anita whatsoever there were idiotic "fake nerd girl" fights and other identity garbage.

“Fake Nerd” has always been a thing. Did you get your job simply by wearing a shirt with HTML on it? Do you accept someone who only knows how to microwave spaghetti-os as a chef? People have always shunned those who claim proficiency they clearly lack. Hell, it's a board rule here. "Fake Nerd" only became a social issue after it got that gender signifier on the end.

Are there assholes out there who take their fandoms too seriously? A quick look at the amount of porn some otherwise innocuous franchises have created says... definitely yes. Are outright assholes ostracized? Yeah, and you better believe that the majority of guys will turn on another man who a female has declared to be making her uncomfortable.

You want respect? You either demonstrate that you know how to handle yourself, or you admit that you don't know that much about it and demonstrate a willingness to learn. Will assholes still be assholes? Yeah.

Demanding that no one, not even assholes, dare ever test you is another thing en-fucking-tirely. It is a sentiment worthy only of contempt.

Covenant wrote: People WITHIN gaming had been talking, long before this, about the struggles that female developers face, and the difficulty in publishing games with non-objectified female leads, and of the sexism in games.

Yeah, it's pretty hard when the definition of objectified is “A feminist doesn't like it.” Of course, the whole Subject/Object false-dichotomy is based on utterly insane thinking, but that's what happens when you have an ideology peer review itself.

Covenant wrote:Culture Police that go after Identity Crime and Thought Crime brought this shitstorm upon themselves.

Hey, you understand the outrage fueling gamergate after all.

Covenant wrote: They act outrageously defensive of this nonsensical identity. It's insane. If you want to know where these female gamers learned to be so relentlessly aggressive in the face of criticism, it is from the people who are relentlessly aggressive in the face of any criticism of nerd culture.

Oh wait, you think the culture police are the people supporting gamergate. Cute.

Covenant wrote:The outrageous backlash here far exceeds any attack levied against the gaming industry, and the fact is a lot of the people making these claims at first were (in earnest) the gaming industry itself: publishers and developers.

Perhaps. Or perhaps the damage of the ongoing attempt has been minimal, because no one wants to risk money on. Or perhaps because the statistic that shows that people who play games, includes free and freemium phone-app time wasters as the primary gaming of women, while men make the majority of console, pc, and retail game purchases.

Thus the market of AAA games (Ya know, console and PC?) are marketed toward men. But no, has to be a conspiracy, it goes against the dogma.

Could also be that the study was done in the first place to defuse criticism of gaming as being an evil little boy's club for man-children, and has since been co opted and used to claim that capitalists aren't exploiting a market because patriarchy.

Covenant wrote:a) Add a little chaos without respect to the meaning of the moment.
b) Bring out the axe to grind they've been harboring for a long time.
c) Steer the revolt in the direction of their own political goals.

And the majority of the harassment, hell the majority of the mentions of the “women the movement was founded to harass” are by the people who're anti-gamergate. And it amounts to... less than one percent of the gamergate tweets, even with evidence of a derailment campaign by Gawker surfacing.

Maybe because you've linked to an anti-gamergate publication, and a reddit thread that links to itself. Of course, he is "the King of /pol/," which if you weren't aware, is a board on 4chan where politically incorrect and deeply contentious things are discussed.

Of course, I'm sure the SCUM Manifesto or Femitheist divine's own opinions on the male gender are in no way damaging to the reputation of feminism as a whole. That would just be unfair to besmirch an entire movement for the deranged ramblings of a high-profile figure the movement hasn't denounced.

Covenant wrote:..okay, back at the 2009 TechCrunch Europe GeeknRolla conference there was a panel on women in the tech industry, and because the male on the panel was sick, Milo offered to join in and threw a wrench into things (no harm there) by offering the view that there's no need to change the state of play in the tech industry because it is a sector "men naturally perform better in" and it would be patronizing to the women already in tech to change things to get more women involved. There's a lot of discussion back and forth about what a "tech job" is and so forth. In any case, it's old news now, but it was a minor stir at the time.

It's also noteworthy that he is a conservative Catholic but also gay, so you would think he would be more sympathetic, but apparently not. He attended the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge but failed to graduate either one. Yes I'm using deliberately mocking language there.

Sympathetic to what? Bribing more women to take tech courses? Making Colleges enforce over-equity (Say 60/40 women to men?) reserves on technological courses? What exactly should he have advocated to make technological industry more welcoming to women?

Of course, that's rather par for the course I've found. Not getting the result you want when people are making their own choices? It couldn't possibly be that the groups you're measuring have different preferences and therefore differing end results. No, it's that the system is corrupt and oppressive, and I'm the glorious paladin fighting against this vile darkness.

Covenant wrote:This is hypocritical when you take into account the "not a real gamer" claims thrown at Sarkeesian despite the fact that she has and does and did never say that video games create psychopathic killers or that game players are all sad sack losers. So when a far-right commentator comes down from the mountaintop and says "I play games now" then that's legit, but when Anita does it's "boo hiss, I bet your KDA is for shit, not a real gamer until beaten Halo on legendaaaaaryyy...."

She's on camera, claiming she is not and never has been a gamer, statements made well before her attempt to fleece the righteous flock by taking Jack Thompson's playbook, and scribbling in "misogynist" over "violent."

Worth noting that someone spammed 4chan with her kickstarter for weeks before her harassment. Could be her, could be someone entirely unrelated who wanted to stir up shit. Eitherway, the honestly mild harassment she got then has taken her a long way, even discounting the $160k which neither sped up the production or increased the quality of her videos.

Covenant wrote:

"So ignore the shoddy, opportunistic posturing from feminists about Rodger’s crimes. It’s the blurring of fantasy and reality in today’s video game-obsessed young men that’s the real enemy. If there’s a cultural milieu that contributed to the creation of Elliot Rodger, it was that of nihilistic video games, not the myth of patriarchal oppression."

Wow, both sides of the aisle can come together the stand on the bodies of the victims and proclaim their pet agenda the reason for the tragedy.

For the record: Elliot Rodger was a deeply disturbed misanthrope. He hated women for not giving him attention. He also hated men for getting attention from women when those men were "clearly" inferior to him. 6 people died, 4 of them male I remind you, because society puts value on attention from women.

A sentiment that it should be noted is echoed by feminists when deriding their opposition. "You're just a loser who can't get laid." Succinctly proposing to use women as a scoreboard to devalue a man and his opinion, as though the only value a man has is his ability to convince, coerce, or trick a woman into sex.

Covenant wrote:Basically, now he says he plays games and has a newfound respect for them versus their feminist enemies, but in truth he's always been skeptical of women in the tech industry (as his previous commentary and journalism attest to) and seems to have a big issue with feminism in general. When a guy went out and shot a bunch of people because he says he's mad at women for not having sex with him, Milo jumps in to attack feminists and say its not misogynistic. I think killing people because women didn't have sex with you is kinda the textbook definition: now, how that thought got planted (like how deranged individuals may be drawn to neo-nazi rhetoric rather than having been made deranged by it) is another idea, but he seems heavily invested in a fight against feminism.

Yeah, he's probably lying.

He could have actually tried video games after detesting them as a thing for children and found that he liked them. Same way Sarkesian could have.

Personally, I think they're both lying for profit.

Covenant wrote:I think he just discounts the value of women, and has been told that he's a misogynist for so long that he's eager to attack them any chance he gets.

Yes, why would one want to attack an ideology who's chief defense against dissent is to shame the opposition by calling them a bigot... That's a stumper.

Covenant wrote:So he's no Rush Limbaugh, he just seems to have a very insular world-view and some kind of "I've got my acceptance, screw the rest of you" view on the expansion of inclusivity.

What do you want in the name of "inclusivity?" I'm willing to bet that while you think it's reasonable in the abstract, when you try to work out how it would actually function in the real world, you begin to have to drive out people who both have the talent and the drive, but also the desire, to push in people who may well have the talent and drive but not the desire.

Covenant wrote:Thus their involvement is suspect, especially when they had previously (as the right-political media and Milo in specific had been) publicly bashing you for being laughable and sad.

When someone scores points off you, and then uses you as a weapon to bash their allies, it is good and proper to suspect you have been co-opted for their benefit and not yours.

This, is very, very true.

Covenant wrote:I mean, I'm not going to demonize the guy, he's not a total monster, and I'll believe him when he says he was sent a threatening package and that sucks. I just have a sensible level of suspicion when someone like him (ie, someone who seems to have a consistent ideological axe to grind) takes up the banner of something like GamerGate.

And yet your side will dismiss people who criticize Anita as sexists who're just mad a woman is trying to make them think.

Covenant wrote:This also muddles the "ethics in journalism" thing because Milo and Breitbart have terrible ethical standards and deliberately put out opposition ideologically-motivated news that distorts and mischaracterizes facts. They were involved in the Shirley Sherrod smear campaign, as noted previously, as well as the Fake Undercover ACORN video release, the Paul Krugman "bankruptcy" hoax and a bogus and blatantly fabricated account that Chuck Hagel attended a "Friends of Hamas" meeting. They basically repost bogus news when it matches their ideology (the Krugman thing was essentially an Onion-style newspaper that got reposted and Breitbart took it as legit) or they fake news or intentionally edit and mischaracterize and decontextualize statements made by people they have an interest in taking down.

So we're looking at the Tea Party or Occupy Wallstreet mark 2. Unsurprising, really. Society is that divided, and people naturally lurch from one extreme to the other when they begin to question their dogma. Almost every athiest goes through an antithiest phase, in which they're outright hostile to those they've percieved as having lied to them their whole life.

Covenant wrote:I think it is a goes-nowhere claim to say that "gamers hate women" since that is really a useless claim, especially when one of their other advocates is a female conservative think-tank member, who is also known for her anti-feminist views more than her pro-videogame views. They don't hate women. They are just expressing a vein of conservative thought that believes the playing field is either equal already, or currently slanted in favor of women, so further attempts at "inclusivity" become Trojan Horses for some kind of conspiratorial fascist matriarchy. It is a deranged view, but it is utterly banal in how common it is among conservatives. GG may not try to be a right-wing movement but they have allowed their language to be driven by right-wing ideologues.

Alright.

I'll bite.

How is it not already equal?

Finally, I find #gamergate as hilarious as this thread. They really think they're going to change anything. Yeah, they've gotten some ad-revenue pulled, and some review contracts renegotiated. But, as is pointed out, many Right side agitators feel they can springboard the thing into fueling their dogma, because a primary driver of the movement is the attempt to enforce the Left-side dogma of feminist narrative on a culture that hasn't yet embraced it.

I think it is a thing that perfectly illustrates the irony of the quote of the week up there. Both the Right and Left Dogmas are the corruption that destroys a great nation from within.

Rule one of Existance: Never, under any circumstances, underestimate stupidity. As it will still find ways to surprise you.

SJW? I mean... That sounds like a slur. But when deciphered, means a social justice warrior.

How low must people fall to actually use 'social justice warrior' as a slur? A person who stands up for social justice in my view deserves respect, at the very least, even if he or she is misguided or makes mistakes. Or you disagree with him or her.

People who use the term SJW in a derogatory context are chauvinist pigs. And no, there is nothing good about being a chauvinist pig (most likely also a social darwinist, as only this type of elitist motherfucker would use 'social justice' as something to be mocked).

Near as I can tell, the mentality behind using "SJW" as an insult seems to be derision of people who are fighting on behalf of minority groups, while not actually belonging to that group themselves. Even though going by that logic, Lyndon Johnson should never have made any real effort to push forward any sort of equality legislation in the 1960s because he was a white man.

Andrew_Fireborn wrote:Yes, Zoe Quinn was the spark that set it all off.

Quinn didn't write the review that sparked this shitstorm, you idiot. Even if the allegations were true, the guy she slept with would also be at fault (if not moreso) for not mentioning that he had a conflict of interest when writing the review. His editors would also be culpable if they knew about the relationship, though personally, I wouldn't think that the sex life of one of their employees is something they should be prying into.

And really, who gives a shit about whether or not Quinn has weird personal interests and beliefs? What the hell does any of that have to do with corruption in gaming journalism?

Wow, that was seriously some really quality insanity from Andrew Fireborn. Somebody must have slipped more than the usual dosage of grandeur to his morning delusions.

Of course, given what happened to the previous #gamergate apologist, I don't expect that we'll have the opportunity to observe more of his company. Not that anyone worth talking to will even care about the loss of one more misogynist asshole.

Warwolf Urban Combat Specialist

Why is it so goddamned hard to get little assholes like you to admit it when you fuck up? Is it pride? What gives you the right to have any pride?
–Darth Wong to vivftp

GOP message? Why don't they just come out of the closet: FASCISTS R' US –Patrick Degan

The GOP has a problem with anyone coming out of the closet. –18-till-I-die

He has been now. Since I do not have permission to ban him permanently without admin approval, I tossed him out for a month. Of course, extending the ban to permanent will not require more than a few clicks.

Warwolf Urban Combat Specialist

Why is it so goddamned hard to get little assholes like you to admit it when you fuck up? Is it pride? What gives you the right to have any pride?
–Darth Wong to vivftp

GOP message? Why don't they just come out of the closet: FASCISTS R' US –Patrick Degan

The GOP has a problem with anyone coming out of the closet. –18-till-I-die

Both of the forum administrators have made it known that Andrew Fireborn's ban is to be upgraded to permanent, so the Ban Hammer has been applied a second time with more vigor and his carcass has been ejected out the door with the imprint of the Flaming Boots of Arse-Kicking firmly stamped on his backside. Thus has the sentence been executed.

By unanimous decision, Andrew has been banned from the board. As I've written in the Gamergate thread, I want to be very clear on why we did this and what this means for the board.

The staff have made it clear that we do not tolerate hate speech towards people based on race or sexual orientation. We wish to be clear that sexist or anti-feminist speech is also not entertained here.

The staff supports women, supports victims of sexism, and will not welcome people who don't. Andrew's anti-feminist ranting does not have a place here, and we feel it is better for the board that we make our stance on this issue firm and clear.